As auto supply shrinks, haggling unlikely to pay off for buyers

PHILADELPHIA New-car buyers won’t like the sound of this, but the days of waltzing into a showroom and talking tough with a desperate salesman until they get the price they want may be coming to an end.

Turmoil in tsunami-ravaged Japan, where work at automotive assembly plants and parts factories has slowed or halted coupled with soaring global gasoline prices and lean inventories has helped raise the prices of vehicles being sold in U.S. showrooms just as the busy spring-buying season approaches.

The supply squeeze is affecting Japanese automakers, but even some of the domestic automakers are grappling with shortages of Japanese-made components that go into their cars, analysts said.

All that, combined with rising interest in fuel-efficient vehicles as crude-oil prices soar, is amounting to a supply-and-demand shift less favorable toward consumers, industry observers said.

“They’re going to pay more than they did in January on a lot of vehicles,” said Michelle Krebs, senior analyst at online car-buying resource Edmunds.com, in West Bloomfield, Mich.

According to dealership sales data analyzed by Edmunds, the price of a typical vehicle went up $120 during the first week in April compared to the first week in March, with increases biggest among Japanese compact models, Krebs said.

Growing demand for fuel-efficient vehicles by consumers grappling with high gas prices is one reason.

“Nissan, we’ve got them up $120 a vehicle; $200 across-the-board of all Hondas,” she said. “Subaru Forester ... increased about $320.”

Increases were modest to flat among domestic models.

Also moving prices up is disruption at Japanese factories.

Because of shortages of parts from Japan, the Subaru factory in Lafayette, Ind., that makes the Legacy, Outback and Tribeca is scheduled to halt production Monday and April 25, as well as April 8. The company said Thursday it also has stopped production until April 25 on a separate line that produces Camrys for Toyota.

Japanese electronics, automotive and parts manufacturers still are struggling to operate at full capacity, if at all.

The most acutely hit brands are Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, and Mazda, which have heavy manufacturing in Japan, said Rebecca Lindland, a global automotive analyst at IHS Automotive in Lexington, Mass. (Korea-based Kia and Hyundai, she said, seem fairly insulated from the parts shortages.)

“Right now, many dealerships aren’t taking orders for some of these products, like the entire (Nissan) Infiniti line that is imported,” Lindland said.

“The consumer is not necessarily going to be able to order their favorite Infiniti or their favorite Prius because of a lack of supply,” she said. “We also aren’t seeing full production yet.”

In past years, buyers could readily find incentives such as zero-percent financing and rebates on domestic and foreign vehicles. Automakers tried to move their big-ticket vehicles with such sweeteners because consumers were reluctant to spend, thanks to the Great Recession and unemployment.